12 Hospitals You Might Want to Avoid

Posted from consumerreports.org

They have high rates of MRSA, C. diff, 
and other dangerous infections

By Joel Keehn

Last updated: September 30, 2015

Every year, an estimated 648,000 people in the U.S. develop infections during a hospital stay, and about 75,000 die with one of those infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s more than twice the number of people who die each year in car crashes.

To highlight the growing problem of dangerous hospital infections, Consumer Reports recently rated hospitals based on their infection rates for two of the most common and deadly bacterial infections in hospitals, MRSA and C. diff. And we identified the 12 hospitals in the country that earned low scores not only against those hospital infections but also three other infections in our Ratings. Those include infections following surgery as well as infections associated with urinary catheters and central-line catheters (large tubes that provide medicine and nutrition to patients).

Those 12 low-scoring hospitals performed poorly across all five types of hospital infections, based on data they provided to federal government agencies, between October 2013 and September 2014. "Getting a low score across all five infection categories is a red flag that the hospital is not focusing proper resources on infection control," says Doris Peter, Ph.D. director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center.

Low-Scoring Hospitals for Infection Prevention
Here are the 12 low-scoring hospitals, listed alphabetically:

Brooklyn Hospital Center, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Decatur Memorial Hospital, Decatur, Ill.
Floyd Memorial Hospital and Health Services, New Albany, Ind.
Fremont-Rideout Health Group, Marysville, Calif.
Little Company of Mary Hospital and Health Care Centers., Evergreen Park, Ill.
Mercy St. Anne Hospital, Toledo, Ohio
Riverview Medical Center, Red Bank, N.J.
Rockdale Medical Center, Conyers, Ga.
St. Petersburg General Hospital, Saint Petersburg, Fla.
The Charlotte Hungerford Hospital, Torrington, Conn.
UF Health Jacksonville, Jacksonville, Fla.
Venice Regional Bayfront Health, Venice, Fla.

Note that the data our hospital Ratings are based on are released ​periodically throughout the year by the CDC. The CDC adjusts that data to account for factors such as the health of a hospital’s patients, its size, and whether it’s a teaching hospital. See our complete and the most current hospital Ratings as well as more about how we rate hospitals.

We’ve asked these hospitals what they are doing to improve, and why their infection rates were higher than average during the reporting time period of October 2013 to September 2014. To date, we have received written responses from the following hospitals:

Brooklyn Hospital Center
Floyd Memorial Hospital and Health Services
Fremont-Rideout Health Group
Little Company of Mary Hospital and Health Care Centers
Rockdale Medical Center
St. Petersburg General Hospital
UF Health Jacksonville
Venice Regional Bayfront Health

Decatur Memorial Hospital called us after we published our Ratings to discuss our findings but has not yet submitted a written response. We will add that response and any other as we receive them.

How Hospitals Can Improve
Our report, "How Your Hospital Can Make You Sick," revealed how hospitals and doctors contribute to hospital-acquired infections and antibiotic resistance and what hospitals and patients can do to protect against the problems.

Specifically, hospitals must do these things to prevent infections:
Follow infection control protocol, such as using protections including gowns, masks, and gloves by all staff.
Reduce overuse of antibiotics.
Have an antibiotic stewardship program. That should include mandatory reporting of antibiotic use to the CDC.
Accurately report how many infections patients get in the hospital.
Promptly report outbreaks to patients, as well as to state and federal health authorities.

Join our efforts to stop hospital infections and support our work in stopping the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Cheers for Lisa McGiffert

Lisa McGiffert Makes Modern Healthcare’s “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare”

Lisa McGiffert, Director of Consumers Union’s Safe Patient Project, was recognized in Modern Healthcare’s “100 Most Influential People in Healthcare” 2015 list. Consumer Reports couldn’t be more proud of Lisa and her accomplishments.

“This recognition is well-deserved and long overdue,” said Consumer Reports President & CEO Marta Tellado.

“Lisa has been a tireless leader in the fight to reduce deadly hospital infections and medical errors. Her work has helped save countless lives by shining the spotlight on this preventable epidemic and by mobilizing patients and their families to hold hospitals accountable for improving the care they provide. Lisa’s partnership with patient safety activists across the country has demonstrated how much impact ordinary citizens can have by joining together and working for change.”

Lisa joined Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, in 1991, working on a full array of health issues in Texas before launching the national Stop Hospital Infections campaign in 2003. Through this campaign, Consumers Union was instrumental in helping to pass legislation in 30 states requiring hospitals to publicly disclose their patient infection rates. Our success in the states helped prompt the federal government to establish a national hospital infection public reporting program in 2011.

As Director of CU’s Safe Patient Project, Lisa has been a tenacious advocate on a number of other patient safety issues, including working to eliminate preventable medical errors and to improve the safety of physician care and medical devices. She lobbies on national and state patient safety legislation and regulations to improve accountability and expand public disclosure about medical harm. Lisa provides a strong voice for consumers at conferences, with the media and when serving on state and national advisory committees, including current positions on the National Quality Forum Patient Safety Committee, the Measures Application Partnership (advises the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services on quality measures for public reporting and pay for performance programs), and CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee.

She has led the development of a national patient safety activist network through collaboration with individuals who have personal experiences with medical harm, providing technical support and training for their work on state legislation and regulations.

Here’s what some Safe Patient Project activists had to say about Lisa’s award:

So good to see you, Lisa, on this list!! It shows what a strong leader of this movement you are and how our work is being heard and our voice is powerful.

Congratulations, Lisa!! We are honored to know you and to have been working with you to save more lives.

This is well deserved recognition for all you do in patient safety around the nation, and especially with the advocates and other people you touch every day! You are just getting started!

We believe that Lisa’s work has made a real difference in the way that American health care is delivered, and her work opens minds and commands attention. From Suzanne Henry, Safe Patient Project Policy Analyst: 

“Lisa influences the way leaders in healthcare approach their work when it comes to patient safety. She has led the charge to quantify patient safety measures, specifically hospital infections. And after ten years of passing laws to require reporting of hospital infections, the guessing game is over. Hospitals can now tell a story about their efforts to prevent infections. Patients can know if hospitals are reducing their infection rates. And reducing infections results in lives saved. Medical harm is the third leading cause of death in the U.S., a statistic that might have gone unnoticed and unchanged without Lisa’s work.”